Max:
I am looking for a way run TRLog on a laptop that does not have a serial
port. Naturally, the laptop does not have any PCI slots so a PCI Serial card
is not a solution. I am guessing that the only possible way to gain serial
ports with such a laptop is to use a USB port input. The USB port would be
connected to one of the USB to COM adapters that is on the market. The
challenge is to find a way to deal with input and output to a USB port when
running a program under DOS. I have been told that USB initialization is
very difficult --- even for folks who are making a living writing such code.
If true, that suggests running TRLog using a DOS operating system and trying
to access virtual COMM ports that are USB inputs may be out of the question.
One possible alternative is to find a way to run TRLog under WinXP, WinME or
Win98 in a "DOS window". In this case the operating system would initialize
the USB Port and the system would register a COMM port. The challenging part
would be to make that COMM port available to TRLog while it was running in a
'DOS window'.
Easy to say, but I am not aware of any software that does this now (runs a
DOS program and lets it access/control USB -COMM ports. If we were able to
achieve this, the useful life of TRLog would be prolonged -- at least for
me.
I wonder if you (or any other reflector reader) have any ideas on whether
this might be possible and, if so, how to get there from here? Or, for that
matter, if code already exists that would allow one to do this.
Tod, KOTO
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